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EG10 Lit Chapter02
EG10 Lit Chapter02
“She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,”
cried the young Student, “but in all my garden there is no red rose.”
From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, and
she looked out through the leaves, and wondered.
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with tears. “Ah, on what little things does happiness depend! I have read
all that the wise men have written, and all the secrets of philosophy are
mine, yet for want of a red rose is my life made wretched.”
“Here at last is a true lover,” said the Nightingale. “Night after night
have I sung of him, though I knew him not: night after night have I
told his story to the stars, and now I see him. His hair is dark as the
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passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow has set her seal
upon his brow.”
“The musicians will sit in their gallery,” said the young Student,
“and play upon their stringed instruments, and my love will dance to
20
the sound of the harp and the violin. She will dance so lightly that her
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throng round her. But with me she will not dance, for I have no red rose
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face in his hands, and wept.
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air. She passed through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow she
sailed across the garden.
21
But the Tree shook its head.
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mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower than the
daffodil that blooms in the meadow before the mower comes with his
scythe. But go to my brother who grows beneath the Student’s window,
and perhaps he will give you what you want.”
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beneath the Student’s window.
“Give me a red rose,” she cried, “and I will sing you my sweetest
song.”
But the Tree shook its head.
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and whiter than the snow upon the mountain. But go to my brother who
grows round the old sun-dial, and perhaps he will give you what you
want.”
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the old sun-dial.
“Give me a red rose,” she cried, “and I will sing you my sweetest
song.”
But the Tree shook its head.
“My roses are yellow,” it answered, “as yellow as the hair of the
mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower than the
daffodil that blooms in the meadow before the mower comes with his
scythe. But go to my brother who grows beneath the student’s window,
and perhaps he will give you want.”
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beneath the student’s window.
“Give me a red rose.” she cried, “and I will sing you my sweetest
song.”
But the Tree shook its head.
“My roses are red,” it answered, “as red as the feet of the dove, and
redder than the great fans of coral that wave and wave in the ocean-
cavern. But the winter has chilled my veins, and the frost has nipped
my buds, and the storm has broken my branches, and I shall have no
roses at all this year.”
22
“One red rose is all I want,” cried the Nightingale, “only one red
rose! Is there no way by which I can get it?”
³7KHUHLVDZD\´DQVZHUHGWKH7UHH³EXWLWLVVRWHUULEOHWKDW,GDUH
not tell it to you.”
“Tell it to me,” said the Nightingale, “I am not afraid.”
“If you want a red rose,” said the Tree, “you must build it out of music
by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart’s-blood. You must sing
to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to
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into my veins, and become mine.”
“Death is a great price to pay for a red rose,” cried the Nightingale,
“and Life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and
to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot of
pearl. Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells
that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love
is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart
of a man?”
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She swept over the garden like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed
through the grove.
The young Student was still lying on the grass, where she had left
him, and the tears were not yet dry in his beautiful eyes.
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red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with
my own heart’s-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will
be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise,
and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-coloured are his
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and his breath is like frankincense.”
The Student looked up from the grass, and listened, but he could not
understand what the Nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew
the things that are written down in books.
23
But the Oak-tree understood, and felt sad, for he was very fond of the
little Nightingale who had built her nest in his branches.
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when you are gone.”
So the Nightingale sang to the Oak-tree, and her voice was like water
bubbling from a silver jar.
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note-book and a lead-pencil out of his pocket.
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the Rose-tree, and set her breast against the thorn. All night long she
sang with her breast against the thorn, and the cold crystal Moon leaned
down and listened. All night long she sang, and the thorn went deeper
and deeper into her breast, and her life-blood ebbed away from her.
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on the topmost spray of the Rose-tree there blossomed a marvellous
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as the mist that hangs over the river - pale as the feet of the morning,
and silver as the wings of the dawn. As the shadow of a rose in a mirror
of silver, as the shadow of a rose in a water-pool, so was the rose that
blossomed on the topmost spray of the Tree.
But the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn.
“Press closer, little Nightingale,” cried the Tree, “or the Day will come
EHIRUHWKHURVHLV¿QLVKHG´
24
So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and louder
and louder grew her song, for she sang of the birth of passion in the soul
of a man and a maid.
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bride. But the thorn had not yet reached her heart, so the rose’s heart
remained white, for only a Nightingale’s heart’s-blood can crimson the
heart of a rose.
And the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the
thorn. “Press closer, little Nightingale,” cried the Tree, “or the Day will
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So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn
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bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang
of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the
tomb.
And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern
sky. Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the
heart.
But the Nightingale’s voice grew fainter, and her little wings began
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song, and she felt something choking her in her throat.
Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it, and
she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it,
and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold
morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke the
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the river, and they carried its message to the sea.
25
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Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long grass,
with the thorn in her heart.
And at noon the Student opened his window and looked out.
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I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that I
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Then he put on his hat, and ran up to the Professor’s house with the rose
in his hand.
“You said that you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose,”
cried the Student. Here is the reddest rose in all the world. You will
wear it to-night next your heart, and as we dance together it will tell
you how I love you.”
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besides, the Chamberlain’s nephew has sent me some real jewels, and
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“Well, upon my word, you are very ungrateful,” said the Student
DQJULO\DQGKHWKUHZWKHURVHLQWRWKHVWUHHWZKHUHLWIHOOLQWRWKHJXWWHU
and a cart-wheel went over it.
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after all, who are you? Only a Student. Why, I don’t believe you have
even got silver buckles to your shoes as the Chamberlain’s nephew
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“What a silly thing Love is,” said the Student as he walked away. ‘It
is not half as useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is
always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making
one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and,
as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to Philosophy
and study Metaphysics.”
So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and
began to read.
27
been asked to leave early instead of waiting for the Pakistan bus, we
were anticipatiing a day of hard toil for the bowlers.
At the back of the bus the fast bowlers were loud in their
complaints. I remember Thilan Thushara being particularly vocal,
complaining that his back was near breaking point. He joked that he
wished a bomb would go off so we could all leave Lahore and go back
home.
Then the bullets started to hit. It was like rain on a tin roof. The
bus was at a standstill, an easy target for the gunmen.
Suddenly Mahela, who sits at the back of the bus, shouts saying
he thinks he has been hit in the shin. I am lying next to Tilan. He groans
in pain as a bullet hits him in the back of his thigh.
28
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RXWWKHQH[WLQQLQJVDQGQRZ\RXKDYHEHHQVKRW:KDWDWHUULEOH¿UVW
tour.”
It is strange how clear your thinking is. I did not see my life
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awareness of what was happening at that moment.
A few hours after the attack we were airlifted to the Lahore Air
Force Base.
29
We were not down and out. “We are Sri Lankan,” we thought to
ourselves, “and we are tough and we will get through hardship and we
will overcome because our spirit is strong.”
I was taken aback. How can this man value his life less than
mine? His sincerity was overwhelming. I felt humbled.
30
The Lumber Room - Saki
Older and wiser and better people had told him that there could
not possibly be a frog in his bread-and-milk and that he was not to talk
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nonsense, and described with much detail the colouration and markings
of the alleged frog. The dramatic part of the incident was that there
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there himself, so he felt entitled to know something about it. The sin of
taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of wholesome
bread-and-milk was enlarged on at great length, but the fact that stood
out clearest in the whole affair, as it presented itself to the mind of
Nicholas, was that the older, wiser, and better people had been proved
to be profoundly in error in matters about which they had expressed the
utmost assurance.
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a glorious afternoon for racing about over those beautiful sands. How
they will enjoy themselves!’
‘Why didn’t he tell me they were hurting?’ asked the aunt with
some asperity.
‘He told you twice, but you weren’t listening. You often don’t
listen when we tell you important things.’
‘You are not to go into the gooseberry garden,’ said the aunt,
changing the subject.
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felt perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden
at the same moment. His face took on an expression of considerable
obstinacy. It was clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into the
gooseberry garden, ‘only,’ as she remarked to herself, ‘because I have
told him he is not to.’
32
Now the gooseberry garden had two doors by which it might
be entered, and once a small person like Nicholas could slip in there
he could effectually disappear from view amid the masking growth
of artichokes, raspberry canes, and fruit bushes. The aunt had many
other things to do that aftemoon, but she spent an hour or two in trivial
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could keep a watchful eye on the two doors that led to the forbidden
paradise. She was a woman of few ideas, with immense powers of con-
centration.
Nicholas made one or two sorties into the front garden,
wriggling his way with obvious stealth of purpose towards one or other
of the doors, but never able for a moment to evade the aunt’s watchful
eye. As a matter of fact, he had no intention of trying to get into the
gooseberry garden, but it was extremely convenient for him that his
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self-imposed sentry-duty for the greater part of the aftemoon. Having
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back into the house and rapidly put into execution a plan of action that
had long germinated in his brain. By standing on a chair in the library
one could reach a shelf on which reposed a fat, important-looking key.
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the mysteries of the lumber-room secure from unauthorized intrusion,
which opened a way only for aunts and such-like privileged persons.
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and turning locks, but for some days past he had practised with the key
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opened, and Nicholas was in an unknown land, compared with which
the gooseberry garden was a stale delight, a mere material pleasure.
33
those people who think that things spoil by use and consign them to
dust and damp by way of preserving them. Such parts of the house as
Nicholas knew best were rather bare and cheerless, but here there were
wonderful things for the eye to feast on. First and foremost there was
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7R1LFKRODVLWZDVDOLYLQJEUHDWKLQJVWRU\KHVDWGRZQRQDUROORI
Indian hangings, glowing in wonderful colours beneath a layer of dust,
and took in all the details of the tapestry picture. A man, dressed in the
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DQDUURZLWFRXOGQRWKDYHEHHQDGLI¿FXOWVKRWEHFDXVHWKHVWDJZDV
RQO\RQHRUWZRSDFHVDZD\IURPKLPLQWKHWKLFNO\JURZLQJYHJHWDWLRQ
WKDWWKHSLFWXUHVXJJHVWHGLWZRXOGQRWKDYHEHHQGLI¿FXOWWRFUHHSXSWR
a feeding stag, and the two spotted dogs that were springing forward to
join in the chase had evidently been trained to keep to heel till the arrow
was discharged. That part of the picture was simple, if interesting, but
did the huntsman see, what Nicholas saw, that four galloping wolves
were coming in his direction through the wood? There might be more
than four of them hidden behind the trees, and in any case would the
man and his dogs be able to cope with the four wolves if they made an
attack? The man had only two arrows left in his quiver, and he might
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was that he could hit a large stag at a ridiculously short range. Nicholas
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was inclined to think that there were more than four wolves and that the
man and his dogs were in a tight corner.
But there were other objects of delight and interest claiming his
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snakes, and a teapot fashioned like a china duck, out of whose open beak
the tea was supposed to come. How dull and shapeless the nursery teapot
seemed in comparison! And there was a carved sandalwood box packed
tight with aromatic cotton-wool, and between the layers of cotton-wool
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delightful to see and to handle. Less promising in appearance was a
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behold, it was full of coloured pictures of birds. And such birds! In
the garden, and in the lanes when he went for a walk, Nicholas came
accross a few birds, of which the largest were an occasional magpie
34
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bitterns, brush turkeys, ibises, golden pheasants, a whole portrait gallery
of undreamed-of creatures. And as he was admiring the colouring of
the mandarin duck and assigning a life-history to it, the voice of his
aunt in shrill vociferation of his name came from the gooseberry garden
without. She had grown suspicious at his long disappearance, and had
leapt to the conclusion that he had climbed over the wall behind the
sheltering screen of the lilac bushes: she was now engaged in energetic
and rather hopeless search for him among the artichokes and raspberry
canes.
‘Nicholas, Nicholas!’ she screamed, ‘you are to come out of this
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SUREDEO\WKH¿UVWWLPHIRUWZHQW\\HDUVWKDWDQ\RQHKDGVPLOHGLQWKDW
lumber-room.
‘Me,’ came the answer from the other side of the wall, ‘didn’t
you hear me? I’ve been looking for you in the gooseberry garden, and
I’ve slipped into the rain-water tank. Luckily there’s no water in it, but
the sides are slippery and I can’t get out. Fetch the little ladder from
under the cherry tree-’
‘I told you not to, and now I tell you that you may,’ came the
voice from the rain-water tank, rather impatiently.
35
µ<RXUYRLFHGRHVQ¶WVRXQGOLNHDXQW¶V¶REMHFWHG1LFKRODVµ\RX
may be the Evil One tempting me to be disobedient. Aunt often tells me
that the Evil One tempts me and that I always yield. This time I’m not
going to yield.’
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fetch the ladder.’
‘Certainly there will be,’ said the aunt, privately resolving that
Nicholas should have none of it.
‘Now I know that you are the Evil One and not aunt,’ shouted
1LFKRODVJOHHIXOO\µZKHQZHDVNHGDXQWIRUVWUDZEHUU\MDP\HVWHUGD\
she said there wasn’t any. I know there are four jars of it in the store
cupboard, because I looked, and of course you know it’s there, but she
doesn’t, because she said there wasn’t any. Oh, Devil, you have sold
yourself!’
It was then she saw the wave. “Oh my God, the sea’s coming
in.” That’s what she said. I looked behind me. It didn’t seem that
remarkable. Or alarming. It was only the white curl of a big wave.
But you couldn’t usually see breaking waves from our room.
You hardly noticed the ocean at all. It was just a glint of blue above
that wide spread of sand that sloped sharply down to the water. Now
the froth of a wave had scaled up this slope and was nearing the tall
conifers that were halfway between our room and the water’s edge,
incongruous those trees in this lanscape of brittle thorny scrub. This
was peculiar. I called out to Steve in the bathroom. “Come out, Steve,
I want to show you something odd.” I didn’t want him to miss this.
I wanted him to come out quick before all this foam dissoved. “In a
minute,” Steve muttered, with no intention of rushing out.
Then there was more white froth. And more. Vik was sittiing by
WKHEDFNGRRUUHDGLQJWKH¿UVWSDJHRIThe Hobbit. I told him to shut
that door. It was a glass door with four panels, and he closed each one,
then came across the room and stood by me. He didn’t say anything, he
didn’t ask me what was going on.
The foam turned into waves. Waves leaping over the ridge
where the beach ended. This was not normal. The sea never came this
far in. Waves not receding or dissolving. Closer now. Brown and gray.
Brown or gray. Waves rushing past the conifers and coming closer to
our room. All these waves now, charging, churning. Suddenly furious.
Suddenly menacing. “Steve, you’ve got to come out. Now.” Steve ran
out of the bathroom, tying his sarong. He looked outside. We didn’t
speak.
I grabbed Vik and Malli, and we all ran out the front door. I was
ahead of Steve. I held the boys each by the hand. “Give me one of them.
Give me one of them,” Steve shouted, reaching out. But I didn’t. That
would have slowed us down. We had no time. We had to be fast. I knew
WKDW%XW,GLGQ¶WNQRZZKDW,ZDVÀHHQJIURP
37
I didn’t stop for my parents. I didn’t stop to knock on the door
of my parents’ room, which was next to ours, on the right as we ran out.
I didn’t shout to warn them. I didn’t bang on their door and call them
out. As I ran past, for a splintered second, I wondered if I should. But
I couldn’t stop. It will stall us. We must keep running. I held the boys
tight by their hands. We have to get out.
:HÀHGWRZDUGVWKHGULYHZD\DWWKHIURQWRIWKHKRWHO7KHER\V
ran as fast as I did. They didn’t stumble or fall. They were barefoot,
but they didn’t slow down because stones or thorns were hurting them.
They didn’t say a word. Our feet were loud, though. I could hear them,
slamming the ground.
I hadn’t seen Orlantha run with us, but she must have done. She
was in the jeep. Her parents had rushed out of their rooms as we came
out of ours, and now her father, Anton, was with us too. Orlantha’s
mother, Beulah, was hoisting hereself into the jeep and the driver
revved the engine. The jeep jerked forward and she lost her grip, fell
off. The driver didn’t see this. I told him to stop, I kept yelling to him
that she had fallen out. But he kept going. Beulah lay on the driveway
and looked up at us as we pulled away. She half- smiled, in confusion
it seemed.
38
Anton leaned out the back to reach Beulah and drag her up.
When he couldn’t, he jumped out. They were both lying on the gravel
now, but I didn’t call out to the driver to wait for them. He was driving
very fast. He’s right, I thought, we have to keep moving. Soon we will
be away from the hotel.
39
Then I saw Steve’s face. I’d never seen him like that before. A
sudden look of terror, eyes wide open, mouth agape. He saw something
behind me that I couldn’t see. I didn’t have time to turn around and
look.
Because it turned over. The jeep turned over. On my side.
40